Bear Creek High School Administrators Tried to Shut Down Student Newspaper's Article About a Classmate Who Does Porn

Like most of the students in her school, Bailey Kirkeby, 17, knew one of her classmates worked in the porn industry — it was a pretty common rumor at Bear Creek High School in Stockton, CA. Bailey, however, knew the classmate in question, so as the managing editor of the Bruin Voice, she was quick to snag the assignment of profiling her for the student newspaper.

“Someone brought up, ‘Hey, there's this girl at our school that does porn, it might be interesting to do a profile on her and how exactly she got into this industry,’" Bailey said in an interview with Teen Vogue. “I already had an established relationship with her because we both did speech and debate together, so I offered to do it since I already did have that connection.”

The goal, Bailey said, was to “humanize” her classmate, who was really excited when Bailey approached her about the profile. But once school administrators got wind of the article slated to publish on May 3, they tried to shut it all down.

Per a letter sent to Bailey’s journalism faculty advisor, Kathi Duffel, on April 11, the school district threatened “discipline up to and including dismissal" should she decline to let administrators review and approve the article before it was published. Despite being told she could be fired should she not show administrators the article, Duffel has refused.

“The district has received information that (the) interview will focus primarily on her production of adult videos,” the letter says, according to the Stockton Record. “Given this focus, the district is reasonably concerned that the article may contain material prohibited by Education Code section 48907.”

Education Code section 48907 is a law which “requires districts to prevent the publication of obscenity, defamation, and incitement.” This, Bailey said, misinterprets the article's intent.

“I was very surprised when we initially got our first letter saying that we couldn't publish [the profile]," Bailey told Teen Vogue. “I think the district is very incognizant of what the article is truly about...The article doesn't specifically state or allude to any specific sexual content, and it doesn't even really focus on her career in the adult entertainment industry as the main focus. The article is more of a profile on the student and her journey, specifically highlighting things she's had to overcome, like a rough freshman year, to get to where she is in her industry.”

That was, after all, the whole point of the profile — not to promote salacious gossip but to take away some of that stigma.

“One of the main reasons she wanted her story to be told was to clear up and address any rumors or false accusations that her peers were making about her,” Bailey told Teen Vogue. “I think a lot of people, when they watch porn, they don't really think about people as actual people. When we're highlighting someone that does work in the pornographic industry, we're kind of humanizing them in a way, and showcasing that yes, you're watching porn, you're just paying attention to this woman's body, but she's doing this to pay rent. I just think this article will definitely be very important in humanizing people that work in this industry.”

Duffel described the article as “the perfect intersection of personal and political.”

“It started out very personal for us, just to tell a simple story of a girl who had made some choices,” Duffel said in an interview with Teen Vogue. “ But somehow it got turned into some salacious aggrandizing of the porn industry that we were going to put out and focus on that. And how that got lost in translation is beyond me, truly.”

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Duffel and her student staff were steadfast in their refusal to give the district early access to the article, and Duffel said they fully intended to publish the article as planned on May 3.

“Mrs. Duffel’s attorney has begun his review of the article, and does not preliminarily believe that it violates the Education Code,” reads the April 29 statement. “The attorney has promised to render a detailed opinion on behalf of the teacher and the student reporter by April 30. The District looks forward to receiving this detailed analysis and will consider it in good faith.”

On May 1, the district released a third statement, announcing that on the basis of the attorney’s recommendation, they would not continue their efforts to prevent publication of the article, though they also stated they do not agree with all aspects of the legal opinion provided.

“Moreover, because the District has been denied an opportunity to preview the article, the District does not endorse it. Because we are charged with the education and care of our community’s children, we will always be diligent in our efforts to provide a safe learning environment for all students, while complying with our obligations under the law."

Duffel said the environment at school has been “electric” in light of Duffel and the editorial board’s refusal to acquiesce to the district’s demands. The threats to fire Duffel have brought into sharp focus the necessity of a free press, student-led or otherwise, and the importance of storytelling, the teacher said.

“I think [the students] are seeing a district that is trying to silence student's voices, and it incenses them,” she said. “I think that the district overreach here has been so broad that, I mean there's no coming back from that.”

“I think the story and this fight against the district is very important in showing that journalists — not just student journalists — do have freedom of the press, and they should be able to voice or showcase topics that people may not necessarily want to talk about, or are uncomfortable with talking about,” Bailey said. “If the district is trying to shield [this story] to protect students from learning about sex, I just don't see how that's beneficial, because we're shielding people from real world issues. I just think it's dumb.”